SHSelfHostIndex

SimpleSAMLphp vs ZITADEL

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted identity & sso options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

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SI SimpleSAMLphp PHP implementation of SAML and identity federation VS ZI ZITADEL Cloud-native identity infrastructure with multi-tenancy built in
FeatureSimpleSAMLphpZITADEL
CategoryIdentity & SSOIdentity & SSO
LicenseLGPL-2.1Apache-2.0
LanguagePHPGo
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM256 MB512 MB
Deploymentbare-metal, source, dockerdocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 1,139★ 14,671
First released20072020
ReplacesOkta, PingFederateAuth0, Okta, Firebase Auth

Why pick each one

Choose SimpleSAMLphp if…

  • Proven and widely deployed
  • Flexible modules
SimpleSAMLphp details

Choose ZITADEL if…

  • Strong multi-tenant model
  • Modern Go codebase
ZITADEL details

Frequently asked questions

Is SimpleSAMLphp or ZITADEL better?

Neither is universally better. ZITADEL has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are SimpleSAMLphp and ZITADEL free and open-source?

Yes. SimpleSAMLphp is licensed under LGPL-2.1 and ZITADEL under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run SimpleSAMLphp and ZITADEL with Docker?

SimpleSAMLphp: yes. ZITADEL: yes.

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